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There's a good Planet Money episode that explains how surprisingly it is still a partisan issue. The Republican argument, at least from certain prominent people

by cactus2093 7y ago

There's a good Planet Money episode that explains how surprisingly it is still a partisan issue. The Republican argument, at least from certain prominent people in the party, is that if paying taxes gets too easy the average American will be less likely to push their representatives to lower taxes or to oppose new taxes that get proposed.

RandomTisk 7y ago
Which 'prominent people'? It sounds like an incredibly silly argument, one I had never heard of before.
- testis321 7y ago
  Honestly, knowing how much taxes you pay is important (and as i said in a comment above, problematic, if people don't know). But this can be solved by autofiling taxes, and then sending a yearly report: you earned X, paid Y taxes, out of those, Z goes to this, Q to that, W to that other thing, you've used these government services this year, that cost that much money, etc.
  - RandomTisk 7y ago
    No doubt, the thing for most people, including anyone who hates paying taxes is the bottom line. I don't see any connection though between the bottom line paid and how forgiving people will be when they discover how easy it is to file. I suspect the word prominent is a misnomer at best, it just makes no sense to me.
danShumway 7y ago
I do get that angle of it, but that partisanship shouldn't extend so far as to excuse lying to people. I guess what I meant by partisanship is, we could have a higher-level argument about whether or not the IRS should in theory have its own filing program, and that's the way that Turbotax wants to phrase this -- that it's just that Democrats want a government program. But Turbotax was blatantly involved in false advertising, lying to customers, rigging search results to get around their obligations. Intuit is putting out videos that say, "Probublica just has an agenda", they want to make it a partisan issue. But it's like a gun company selling guns that randomly explode in your hands, and trying to say that it's an attack on the 2nd Amendment when they're forced to issue a safety recall. When I describe the issue to people, I try not to let them have a partisan debate about taxes in general. When that debate starts to come up, I push back on the simpler issue, which is just that false advertising shouldn't be OK.
testis321 7y ago
> is that if paying taxes gets too easy the average American will be less likely to push their representatives to lower taxes or to oppose new taxes that get proposed. This is problematic here (small EU country). People have no idea how much taxes they pay, and believe free (healthcare, schooling,...) is actually free, and that government can pay for anything. If average Joe (Janez here) would know how much taxes he pays for (eg.) health, and what kind of a shitty service he gets for that, he'd be protesting already,... but since it's 'free', it's ok, just so he doesn't have to pay for it (out of pocket directly).

RandomTisk 7y ago

Which 'prominent people'? It sounds like an incredibly silly argument, one I had never heard of before.

testis321 7y ago
Honestly, knowing how much taxes you pay is important (and as i said in a comment above, problematic, if people don't know). But this can be solved by autofiling taxes, and then sending a yearly report: you earned X, paid Y taxes, out of those, Z goes to this, Q to that, W to that other thing, you've used these government services this year, that cost that much money, etc.
- RandomTisk 7y ago
  No doubt, the thing for most people, including anyone who hates paying taxes is the bottom line. I don't see any connection though between the bottom line paid and how forgiving people will be when they discover how easy it is to file. I suspect the word prominent is a misnomer at best, it just makes no sense to me.

danShumway 7y ago

I do get that angle of it, but that partisanship shouldn't extend so far as to excuse lying to people. I guess what I meant by partisanship is, we could have a higher-level argument about whether or not the IRS should in theory have its own filing program, and that's the way that Turbotax wants to phrase this -- that it's just that Democrats want a government program. But Turbotax was blatantly involved in false advertising, lying to customers, rigging search results to get around their obligations. Intuit is putting out videos that say, "Probublica just has an agenda", they want to make it a partisan issue. But it's like a gun company selling guns that randomly explode in your hands, and trying to say that it's an attack on the 2nd Amendment when they're forced to issue a safety recall. When I describe the issue to people, I try not to let them have a partisan debate about taxes in general. When that debate starts to come up, I push back on the simpler issue, which is just that false advertising shouldn't be OK.

testis321 7y ago

> is that if paying taxes gets too easy the average American will be less likely to push their representatives to lower taxes or to oppose new taxes that get proposed. This is problematic here (small EU country). People have no idea how much taxes they pay, and believe free (healthcare, schooling,...) is actually free, and that government can pay for anything. If average Joe (Janez here) would know how much taxes he pays for (eg.) health, and what kind of a shitty service he gets for that, he'd be protesting already,... but since it's 'free', it's ok, just so he doesn't have to pay for it (out of pocket directly).